


The First Question

by vega_voices



Series: Come Rain, Come Shine [1]
Category: Murphy Brown (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-15 03:29:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15403974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vega_voices/pseuds/vega_voices
Summary: A week ago, she’d been passed out on her floor, still in her overcoat, safe by some miracle of the universe. She could have killed someone on the drive home. She could be in jail right now instead of sitting on a porch in Palm Springs, surrounded by her fellow self-addicted celebrities. What a life that would be - from news queen to drunken murderer. Grace from a God she didn’t believe in had managed to get her home that night.





	The First Question

**Title:** The First Question  
**Author:** vegawriters  
**Fandom:** Murphy Brown  
**Rating:** Gen  
**Timeframe:** Pre-pilot (1988)  
**A/N:** I picked up a copy of _Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe_ the other day and three pages in, I realized this was Murphy’s favorite book. No one knows it’s her favorite book (at least yet). But she keeps the tattered copy she stole from Betty Ford in her nightstand at home.  
**Disclaimer:** You know the rules - I don’t make a penny from this and let me tell you, I know that I’m killing my chances to eventually write the novel for the show by posting fic. So rules are rules: Diane English and co are God. Remember that. _Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe_ was written by Fannie Flagg in 1987. Also, not mine.

 **Summary:** _A week ago, she’d been passed out on her floor, still in her overcoat, safe by some miracle of the universe. She could have killed someone on the drive home. She could be in jail right now instead of sitting on a porch in Palm Springs, surrounded by her fellow self-addicted celebrities. What a life that would be - from news queen to drunken murderer. Grace from a God she didn’t believe in had managed to get her home that night._

Day six.

Her last drink had been exactly six days ago. On the plane. She’d begged Jim to stop in the airport bar, but instead she’d just ridden the baggage carousel and avoided the shame and disappointment in his eyes. Six days. Terrified, she’d looked into the eyes of a doctor who was too young to be a doctor and told her she needed help. The woman had sat in an office with mahogany furniture and written Murphy’s life down on a little clipboard.

“I can’t do my job anymore,” she’d said, tears streaming down her cheeks. “My job is everything to me.” If the doctor didn’t understand that, she was in the wrong place.

The doctor seemed to understand. At least, she acted like she did. Murphy’s room had a view of palm trees that she didn’t care about because she was too busy sweating through the shakes and reaching for bottles that were no longer there.

“I’ll get rid of them for you,” Jim said as he walked away. But he didn’t know all her hiding places.

She couldn’t stand sitting in the group sessions. She couldn’t stand listening to people whine about problems that could be fixed if they’d just toughen up. Like her. Because they didn’t know the utter, impending hell of having the weight of a weekly news magazine on your shoulders and if you screwed up, 30 million people watched you do it and then it was talked about and laughed about and she couldn’t escape it.

Okay, a couple of the actors in one of the group sessions got it. But they hadn’t landed the interview of the century, the first interview with Noriega, and there were no strings. She could ask any question she wanted. She’d negotiated that. Months of research, of phone calls, of lunches with ambassadors and congressional aides. She’d done it. And instead of getting on a plane to Panama, she’d opened a $100 bottle of scotch, took a swig directly from the bottle, and paced her office, chain smoking her way to the first question.

But it wouldn’t come. She scratched at non-existent bugs under her skin and pressed down on a new bruise that had appeared on her thigh. She put her hair up, took it down, put it up again, kept drinking. And drinking. She smoked a cigarette and took a swig, a shot. The amber liquid in the bottle diminished and she still didn’t have a damn question. She was getting on a plane in a few hours and she didn’t have the damn question. She had two hours in Panama and she didn’t have the damn question.

From her shelf, her Emmy judged her.

Murphy paced away, took a swig. And again. And again. She tripped over her chair, spilling scotch on her sleeve, but she didn’t care. She didn’t have the damn question.

She didn’t have …

She’d woken up at home. Still without the question, but without any recollection of how she got there. She woke up, staring at the blue paint on the walls which was suddenly so hard on her eyes, and couldn’t tell if it was the paint she hated, or the hangover.

No. She was still drunk.

Stumbling over herself, still in her overcoat, she made it to the kitchen and opened the vodka bottle in the freezer, tipping a few last sips into her mouth. She didn’t have a damn question.

A question.

A …

How the hell did she get home? Even her shoes were still on.

Shaking hands spilled warm vodka into a dirty coffee mug and she grimaced at the taste but kept drinking, tripping in her heels back to the front door. Which was open. Out in the driveway, somehow parked in a straight line, was her baby.

She’d driven home?

She took another swig of the now coffee-flavored vodka. And another. Her head wasn’t clearing. How the hell had she managed to get home? There weren’t any dents in the Porsche that she could see. That was positive.

She caught her toe on the door jam and fell, bruising her knee. The mug shattered on the hardwood. “Fuck,” she muttered, trying to get back to her feet. She had to get on a plane. She needed the damn question.

Leaving the mug in pieces, she pushed back to her feet, ignoring the scrape on her knees, and tried to make it up the stairs. She fell, twice, her hands catching her as she slipped. Her legs refusing to work any more. Finally, she stopped. Finally, she caught her breath and sat on the stairs, taking in the scene around her.

The open door, the broken coffee mug, the vodka bottles on the stairs, the whiskey bottle on the table in the foyer. She’d paid a million bucks for a townhouse that was decorated in empty liquor bottles?

She got to her feet and her heel slipped on the stair. Her hand flew out and she barely caught herself from spiralling down.

She still didn’t have a question.

Leaving the front door open, Murphy walked back to the kitchen for a refill of vodka. All she needed was the question and she’d be fine. She’d be fine. She was Murphy Brown, of course she'd be fine. She’d …

She dropped a mug and a wine glass before just bringing the bottle back with her to the couch. Collapsing, she stared at her hands, at the bruise on her wrist. She needed a cigarette. Everything smelled of tobacco and scotch and rum and she would be just fine after she had a cigarette. She’d have her first question. It would be fine.

How had she managed to get home?

No, that question wasn’t for Noriega. That one was for her, to figure out later. Right now, she still needed a question.

She lit the cigarette.

Hot ash dropped onto the rug at her feet. She didn’t care. There wasn’t a closeby ashtray. Frank. Frank would help her. She’d call him. But he was in … somewhere. He wasn’t here. That’s why she didn’t have a first question.

A drag, a drink. A drag, a drink. No first question.

Her body hurt and started to reject the alcohol and she managed to get to the laundry room before emptying the contents of her stomach into the sink. She slid to the floor, still heaving, and closed her eyes. Sleep. Sleep would help. She’d sleep this off and when she woke, she’d have the question.

She didn’t. Her door was still open, though. Her legs wobbly. Everything smelled like vomit, which only made her puke again.

How the hell had she managed to get home?

Shaking, she finally closed her door and turned around again, this time catching her face in the mirror. She was pale, her eyes red, her lips dry and cracked, her hair thin. She walked over and touched the glass.

She was still wearing her overcoat. She didn’t have a question. The reflection currently judging her told her she never would.

She made it to the phone. Arvin should have been her first call. Instead, she dialed the familiar number and managed to sound perfectly fine when Doris answered the phone.

“Jim,” she said, her stomach lurching. She reached for the bottle of vodka. “Jim. I need help.” When she’d dialed, it was to see if he would give her the question she was looking for. When he came to the line, it was because she knew, finally, that she was in over her head. “I don’t know what to do, Jim. But it’s too much.” She was still in her overcoat.

In the one group session she’d attended, she’d said how she called her friend and mentor and he’d driven her to the airport. She didn’t give details. They didn’t need to know how she’d fallen into the shower with her suit on. Or how she’d managed to get drunk all over again waiting for Jim to arrive.

Even revealing the smallest detail, she couldn’t even sit there with them. All of them whining and whining. So she walked the halls of the clinic, looking for something to do.

Day six.

The library was open and she stepped in, embraced immediately by the gentle calm that permeated every space dedicated to books. She felt it in her own home library, the one room in the house where even her daily chaos seemed lesser. She’d broken many a story sitting in her huge chair by the window.

Two other people were in the space, and Murphy wandered to a corner stack, trying to hide her face. She was hardly the most famous person here, but she just felt like everyone was watching, everyone was judging. After all, how much could she really be trusted if she’d been drunk the entire time the public had been watching?

A book caught her eye. She remembered when it had come out last year, all of her girlfriends were raving about it, but she’d been neck deep in three different biographies for research on three different stories and reading for leisure just hadn’t been anything she’d had time for.

Now, all she had was time.

She trusted Lisa and Meg, so she picked the book off the end table, found a spot in a big chair by the window, tucked her feet up, and opened the cover.

_I may be sitting here at the Rose Terrace Nursing Home, but in my mind I’m over at the whistle Stop Cafe having a plate of fried green tomatoes. - Mrs. Cleo Threadgoode, June 1986._

Eyebrock cocked, Murphy turned the page. This was what Meg had been mooning over?

An hour later, she hadn’t moved. Sucked completely into the story of Ruth and Idgie, she kept turning the page. Tears dripped, unnoticed save for when she had to wipe them away so she could see, Murphy read. And read. And read. She skipped lunch and read all the way until dinner, when one of the nurses came to find her.

Her hands had stopped shaking.

She skipped dinner. Really, she assured the nurse, she was fine. She was. She just had a few more pages to read and it wasn’t worth it to put the book down now.

_The old woman stood on the side of the road and waved back until the car was out of sight._

She didn’t care about the recipes at the end, but only after she closed the book and stretched the muscles that had been in the same position for the better part of the day did she realize two things -

For a little while, she’d been able to forget her own humiliation. And, she hadn’t gone out for a cigarette all day.

It was late now, and she stood, her knees buckling slightly. She should have moved around more.

One foot in front of the other and she made it back to her room with the view of the palm trees and the one decoration she’d allowed herself - the image of Mr. March from the ChippenDales calendar that Frank had sent along. She sank onto her bed and put the book on the nightstand, staring at the pages she’d spent the day lost in. The book, she realized, might have saved her sobriety, if not her life. It wasn’t until this moment that she could process that this morning, she’d been ready to check herself out, go buy as much booze as she could, and drink herself into nothingness down on the beach.

She had the question now. Seven days later, she had the question. The interview was cancelled, the show had said she’d taken some personal time while the Tattler had published pictures of her trash cans full of empty liquor bottles and she was glad the network had opted not to flaunt the Noriega interview until after she’d completed it - just in case he flaked. Well, joke was on them, she was the one to flake.

She was probably fired. It was a good thing she had socked so much away because there wasn’t a network right now that would take her. It would be back to the freelance and foreign correspondent routes. Well. She’d been there before. And she could still pay her mortgage. At least for a little while. It was a damn miracle that she hadn’t been fired before now, but there had to be a final straw and this was probably it. At least they were being good enough to not do it - yet - while she was still here.

In rehab.

It was a heady word.

Her fingers started to twitch and she reached into the nightstand for her cigarettes. Grabbing the pack and her lighter, she made her way out to the smoking porch, joining the evening crowd.

Rehab.

She lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply, the taste of tobacco and burning paper thick on her tongue.

Rehab.

The women in the book tumbled through her mind. Ruth and Evelyn, and of course Idgie, who she connected to the most. Well, Idgie was nicer than she was.

Rehab.

Another drag, and the smoke felt heavy around her, tight. She could smell the chemicals clinging to everything. Her brain ached with the need for a drink.

Rehab.

A week ago, she’d been passed out on her floor, still in her overcoat, safe by some miracle of the universe. She could have killed someone on the drive home. She could be in jail right now instead of sitting on a porch in Palm Springs, surrounded by her fellow self-addicted celebrities. What a life that would be - from news queen to drunken murderer. Grace from a God she didn’t believe in had managed to get her home that night.

She finally had the question.

She smoked two cigarettes before tossing her third one into the trash. The cigarettes went right along with the scotch and she couldn’t quit one without quitting the other. Shaking, she stood and made her way back to her room, changed into her pj’s, and crawled into bed. She reached for the book and opened it, again, to page one. By page ten, she was asleep and slept through, her first full night since arriving. She woke with nicotine bugs in her skin, and instinct had her reaching for her smokes, but her hand clenched around the pack, crushing them.

She couldn’t quit one without quitting the other.

She barely made it to the bathroom before emptying the scant contents of her stomach into the toilet. The shakes were back, but she stepped into the shower and let the steam do its job. She dressed carefully - a pair of green linen pants and a white tank top and a comfortable pair of sandals. Her body ached and food was the last thing on her mind, but she went to breakfast anyway. She grabbed a bottle of cold water and a banana and took a solo seat by the window, staring out at the eternal blue skies of Southern California.

_So tell me, Mr. Noriega, how you would classify this moment in time. As a failure of your government or a success derailed by external factors?_

It was a trick question. Because either way, he was admitting his legacy was a failure. Either way, he was admitting he had screwed it all up. And then, she could steer the conversation through the coup and into the next steps for a Panama that would be recovering for years.

Failure.

She had thrown herself off the cliff rather than get on a plane. Rather than face her own question.

_So tell me, Ms. Brown, how would you classify this moment in time? As a failure of your ability to control an addiction, or a success derailed by external factors?_

_What factors?_

_Oh, funny you should ask. Alcoholism. I hide my failures at the bottom of a glass and see, I’m good enough that until eight days ago, I could get away with it. But eventually, the failure, you see, it grew past the glass._

She tossed the banana peel into the trash, grabbed her water bottle, and made her way down the hall. The first of the sessions was starting and she found herself in a chair, watching everyone come in. She formed first questions for each of them, just from how they held their shoulders. All of them variations on _How did you come to be here? Why do you want to get sober?_

Her internal interviewer voice taunted her. _Why do you want to get sober, Miss Brown?_

She tried to breathe. Her hands were shaking. Her heart was pounding. But she was here.

“My name is Murphy,” she said as the circle introductions got to her. “And I’m …” she stared at her hands. “I’m an alcoholic. And until a week ago, I was a pretty good one.”

The room chuckled. She raised her head and shrugged.

“I don’t know if this will work. But I needed help. And a friend helped me get here.” Jim was hardly Ruth, and yet, he was.

“Why do you need the help, Murphy?”

She looked out at the blue skies again. “Because the panic of asking the first question in an interview, it got to be too much. I couldn’t find the question anymore. I stopped knowing how to do my job. So I’m here. Because …” she took a breath. “I have more questions to ask.”


End file.
